


Torch the Bridge

by 24parts



Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood, Consensual Roleplay of a Non-Consensual Situation, Ficlet, M/M, Roleplay, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 17:34:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9248477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/24parts/pseuds/24parts
Summary: The princess takes a prisoner.





	

   The wooden blade presses against Butters' throat, sturdy. The princess' hands don't shake at all, but he can feel her chest against his back, heaving with her breaths. They ran here, his wrist in her iron grip and the Stick of Truth in her other hand, slipping on pavements and dodging mages and rangers, scrambling over the railway tracks. Butters had tried to fight, but not too hard. She was armed, and he was helpless.

  The cave is dank and dark and reeks of smoke. Cigarette smoke, Butters realises, and wrinkles his nose. The princess has him pulled against her and she's flattened to the-- the rock, Butters decides. They're between two large rocks in a cave. Hiding. Holding their breath. 

   When he glances out of the broken window, he can see a search party in the distance, and his heart leaps. They've already come looking for him. The princess might be strong, but there's only one of her, and she's wounded. She'd yelped climbing in through the smashed car window, and Butters can see blood on her torn dress, seeping through from the cut on her leg. She wont stand a chance. 

  "Shh," Princess Kenny says, hissing in his ear, though he hadn't said anything.

  "Oh, you're gonna get it when they find us--" Butters struggles, kicking his legs, squirming against her hold, though he knows it's futile.

  "Make another sound, and you're dead." The princess pushes the blade harder against his throat, and he swallows hard. He'll serve his kingdom better alive as a hostage than dead in the snow. He tries to remember that.

  The cave is an obvious hiding place, right in Kenny's front yard, but they're sheltered well and night has already fallen. Butters can see, in his periphery, a small team of rangers with feathers in their hats and bows on their backs, huddled at Kenny's front door. He almost groans when they ring the bell.

  "Those fools," Princess Kenny whispers. Butters feels her breath on the shell of his ear.

  All he can do is watch, heart pounding. The rangers look like third graders. "Is Kenny home?" one of them asks, meekly.

  "No, I don't think he is," Kenny's mom says. She peers out into the yard and Butters is yanked down suddenly, down against the seat, and with the way the princess is holding that knife to his neck he thinks he'll get a splinter any second. "Have you boys seen him? It's getting late."

  "No, ma'am," a ranger says, and then Butters hears the door close and footsteps crunch the snow, going on the other direction, growing quiet until they fade completely.

  Princess Kenny's grip slackens and Butters sits up. She joins him. They're both panting, the suspense thrilling, and though Butters is supposed to be fearing for his life, he feels himself glow with the cold and the excitement. Princess Kenny chose _him_ from a line of his fellow soldiers, seemingly without even thinking about it. The others will retire as bedtime approaches, but for them, the game goes on.

  "Ha!" Princess Kenny curls a lock of blond hair around her finger. "What will the alliance do now, without their precious paladin? The Grand Wizard King has no-one left to protect him. No one but Scott Malkinson!"

  Butters sniffs. "Not for long. They're out looking for me."

  "They're not looking for you, they're looking for the stick." She holds it up, in all its glory, admiring the way it catches the dim light streaming from the windows of the house. "But they'll never find it. Never!"

  "Gosh, Princess Kenny, you're-- you're mad with power!" Butters cries, inching away from her. Inching is all he can do -- without his hammer, he's nothing, and he feels himself growing weak. Probably because he hasn't eaten dinner yet. "How could you do this to us?"

  There's a resounding _slap_ as Princess Kenny hits him across the face. Butters gasps and clutches at his cheek. It actually hurt -- he thinks he was backhanded, though it happened so fast, he can't be sure.

  "The stick is my birthright," Princess Kenny says. "And soon, all of you pathetic humans and elves will swear allegiance to me!"

  "Never!" Butters drops his hands from his cheek and clenches them into fists. "You might be a traitor, Princess Kenny, but _I_ will always remain loyal to the-- oof!"

  There's a soft impact and then Butters is on his back, splayed over the back seat, his wrists pinned beside his head. Princess Kenny is sitting on his belly and their noses are almost touching. The fire in her eyes fills him with a genuine fear, and he trembles, and feels so incredibly powerless beneath her weight. This is not the princess he used to know, with her flowers and unicorns and army of rats; the princess who sang and frolicked in meadows and spoke questionable Japanese. The princess he once served is gone, lost to her ambition, never to return.

  Butters' breaths are coming ragged. If she kills him now, he'll be avenged by his allies. He knows he will.

  "Denounce those scum you call your friends," Princess Kenny demands, with venom in her voice. Though she sounds calm, she's looking pale. Maybe she knows she's fighting a battle she can't win, Butters thinks, or maybe it's the blood loss.

  "No!" he says, and glares at her.

  "They killed my people." Her fingernails dig into his skin. "They killed them like-- like veal!"

  Butters blinks. "You mean like lambs?"

  "Whatever!"

  "Well-- well your people were brutes!"

  "Your people enacted a heartless genocide! _They_ are the brutes! They've brainwashed you, don't you see? If you were loyal to your kingdom, you'd be on _my_ side."

  "Oh, no, no. Nobody will recognise you as our princess after this betrayal, Kenny. Now you're just a no-good... a no-good slut!"

  "Oh! The nerve!" Princess Kenny says, and Butters flinches, thinking she might slap him again. "I didn't want to have to do this, Paladin, but you leave me no choice."

  Butters' heart stops. In the corner of his eye he can still see Princess Kenny's knife, sheathed in her belt, and the arrows in the quiver on her back, decent for stabbing at close range. He closes his eyes, waiting for the end and hoping Kenny will at least walk him home after, now that it's dark and scary outside and he's in the bad part of town. Then he feels breath on his cheek, and a familiar pressure there. A kiss.

  "No!" Butters' eyes fly open, and Princess Kenny's are right there, maniacal, blue, gazing down at him. She's pulled her parka down at the front, under her chin; Butters can see her cheeks are flushed. "Oh God! What're you doing?"

  "Let's see how long you can hold out under torture, _brave Paladin_ ," Princess Kenny says, with a wicked smile that shows all her teeth. Butters wonders if he should scream. Fingers are in his hair, grabbing, holding him still, and he's too dumbfounded to even fight back. Kenny kisses his cheek again, and again, and then his forehead.

  She pulls back and stares at him. He stares back.

  "You're immune," the princess breathes. "But how?"

  "I..." Butters shakes his head. "I don't know!"

  "Impossible..." She kisses the tip of his nose, which turns his stomach upside down, but not in the way she's expecting, and she pulls back again, horrified. "No!"

  Butters' brain has gone static. Kenny is looking at him, expecting an explanation, though Butters doubts that he needs one in reality. The game is waiting for him, and all he can do is lie there, untouched by the princess' poison kisses. To date, he is the only one in the land to survive them.

  "It must be my, um-- my-- my Protector Shield of Holiness!" is what he eventually comes up with, and hopes Kenny wont challenge this.

  "But your hammer is still in Clyde's backyard. I mean, it's in the Fortress of Darkness. You have no power!"

  "Well, Princess Kenny, holiness comes _within_  a paladin's noble heart! Not that you'd know anything about that, you-- you evil creature!"

  Princess Kenny gasps, momentarily releasing him. "How dare you!"

  Butters doesn't hesitate. He shoves her back, and the moment he can move his legs, he jerks up his knee, smashing it into the approximate location of her balls. He must hit his mark, because Princess Kenny screams, her expression contorting from outrage to agony. Butters scrambles backwards, sitting upright, barely able to catch his breath.

  "Ow!" Kenny lunges for him, furious, but then changes his mind halfway through and shoves both of his hands between his legs, under his skirt. He's whimpering. "Butters, what the fuck!"

  "Um--" Butters rubs his knuckles together, the urge to flee thoroughly gone from him. "Princess Kenny..."

  "No, we're not playing anymore! You kicked me in the balls!"

  "I'm sorry!" Butters covers his mouth with his hands when he sees tears on Kenny's cheeks, though his face is turned away. "Do you... um, want my healing touch?"

  "On my _balls_? No!" Kenny is still crying, hunched over. "Jesus fucking Christ, that hurts!"

  Butters didn't think he put _that_ much force behind it -- the torture wasn't working, after all, and even though Kenny had him pinned, he wasn't scared. It was all just play; he'd been so involved in their little struggle, he'd forgotten Kenny's body and all its vulnerabilities were real. And now here he sits, sick with guilt. He shuffles closed, and offers his healing touch anyway, rubbing circles over Kenny's back, which seems to help.

  "Well, um, I guess we're even now. From playin' ninjas," Butters says.

  "Oh, god, fuck." Weakly, Kenny laughs. "You'd have to kick me in the balls ten times to get even for that. And that's not an invitation," he adds, still clutching himself protectively.

  "You're still all bloody, Ken," Butters says, glancing down. "We really need to get you cleaned up."

  "Yeah," Kenny says, but he hesitates. Absent-mindedly, he rests one arm in the same window he cut himself on, and Butters winces, wondering how he can be so careless. "What d'you think's going on out there? It's really quiet."

  "Oh, I don't know. Probably nothin'," Butters sighs, abandoning the back-rubbing and slumping back in his seat. It's actually not uncomfortable, though the upholstery is full of ancient tears and freshly stained with Kenny's blood. "I bet those fellas are all still up in the fortress, arguing about green sauce."

  Kenny grins at him. "Well I'm pretty glad we missed that."

  "Me too," Butters says, and rests his head on Kenny's shoulder. He's so tired that he almost doesn't give it any thought; just enough to rationalize to himself that Kenny wont care, probably, since he's spent the last three days running around in a dress, flashing and kissing almost every boy in town. "Why'd you pick me to run away with? I mean-- why not one of the others?"

   Butters rubs his knuckles together again. If it had been Stan or Kyle taken hostage, there would’ve been search parties of hundreds, scouting the snowy plains for days, and a hefty ransom offered. Butters is loyal, but he knows, deep in his heart, that in Koopa Keep, loyalty to one’s king only goes in a singular direction. 

  "You'll have to ask the princess," Kenny replies, pressing an almost absent-minded kiss to Butters' hair, and although Butters is not the first to survive the very non-lethal kisses of Kenny McCormick, he feels a little bit special anyway.


End file.
